Planned Parenthood announced a multi-phase pilot program to build and expand its comprehensive HIV prevention and education efforts. Gilead Sciences, Inc, a research-based biopharmaceutical company, awarded the $900,000 grant to support and expand efforts of HIV prevention and education, including the integration of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) awareness, at Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers across the country over the next 18 months. It is the first significant corporate grant of its kind awarded to Planned Parenthood, and will focus critical prevention efforts in communities hardest hit by the epidemic.

The grant work will be carried out in partnership with The Black AIDS Institute, the only national HIV/AIDS think tank in the United States focused exclusively on Black people.

“Planned Parenthood is thrilled to be launching this incredibly exciting project. Although this country has made progress toward greater health care equity, disparities in HIV rates remain a serious issue for too many people and too many communities,” said Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Rates of new HIV cases, along with barriers to treatment and health care access, continue to more greatly impact marginalized communities. With this grant, Planned Parenthood can implement life-saving awareness and care not otherwise funded at this scale. It furthers our mission to provide all people, especially those already facing barriers to accessing quality health care, with comprehensive and cutting-edge HIV prevention methods, including PrEP”.

PrEP is the medical practice of prescribing antiretroviral medication to prevent against HIV infection.

“The Black AIDS Institute is proud to partner with Planned Parenthood to expand comprehensive HIV prevention services to Black Women”, Phill Wilson, President and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute. “Given the disproportionate impact HIV is having on Black women and the new tools we have at our disposal, this is the right thing to do at the right time.”

The majority of the grant will directly support the efforts of Planned Parenthood affiliates to develop training and resources aimed at delivering a comprehensive program of HIV prevention, including PrEP and other methods, in health centers across the country. It will also go toward the creation of patient education materials to reach populations most at-risk for HIV, as well as capacity-building sustainable learning modules across affiliates.

“Scientific innovation has greatly improved our ability to address the HIV epidemic,” said Gregg Alton, Executive Vice President, Corporate and Medical Affairs for Gilead Sciences, Inc. “Alongside that innovation, diverse programs and partnerships are helping to ensure we can reach those most in need of treatment and prevention options. Prevention strategies, including PrEP and other methods, can have a meaningful impact on public health, offering an unparalleled opportunity to avert new infections and reduce long term costs to the healthcare system.”

Planned Parenthood provides high-quality, compassionate care in health centers across the country, including nearly 700,000 HIV tests each year. Planned Parenthood health centers are uniquely positioned to deliver HIV prevention services and education to disproportionately impacted communities, including Black women, Latinas, transgender people, young adults of all backgrounds, and men who have sex with men, especially people of color.

Dr. McDonald-Mosley added, “Training and resourcing more medical providers to provide HIV and PrEP education, with a particular focus on prevention in underserved communities, is a job for which Planned Parenthood is uniquely suited. For over 100 years, we’ve been fighting to ensure that people — no matter where they live — can access accurate, nonjudgmental preventive care and education so they can keep themselves and their families healthy.”

Despite the life-saving advances in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for treatment and prevention, HIV remains an urgent public health crisis, especially for certain marginalized communities who face barriers to affordable, quality health care. According to a 2014 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveillance report, women of color, particularly Black women, are disproportionately affected by HIV, accounting for the majority of the HIV infections, women living with HIV, and HIV-related deaths among women in the U.S.

“Over 40% of people living with HIV in the U.S are Black. Nearly 50% of new HIV infections in this country are Black. and 1 in 32 black women, 1 in 16 black men, and 1 and 2 Black Gay men will be diagnosed with HIV infection in their lifetime. Yet 85% of current PrEP users are white men. What’s wrong with this picture”, says Leisha McKinley Beach, technical assistance consultant, Black AIDS Institute.

While awareness of antiretroviral medication as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among men who have sex with men (MSM) has risen significantly, women at risk for HIV still face several challenges in getting the services and information they need, including structural and cultural barriers such as poverty, HIV stigma, and a relative lack of access to healthcare professionals trained to offer comprehensive HIV prevention, including PrEP and other methods.

As part of our mission to help people live healthy lives, Planned Parenthood works every day in communities across the country and with partners around the world so that everyone — no matter who they are or where they live — can access accurate, high-quality, compassionate sexual and reproductive health care.

Obstacles to Therapy

All major medical associations agree that transgender individuals need to be able to express their gender in ways with which they feel comfortable and that this is the most effective treatment for psychological distress caused by incongruence between sex assigned at birth and gender. For many transgender individuals, expressing their gender involves physically changing their body through medical steps such as taking hormone therapy. However, transgender patients often experience difficulty getting hormone therapy prescriptions, to the point that 1 in 4 transgender women have to resort to illegally obtaining cross-sex hormones. Part of this is because existing research on transgender hormone therapy is limited and conflicting, which has led to some physicians denying patients this treatment out of concern that it could significantly increase the risk of health problems such as blood clots and cardiovascular disease.

First Study

A team of researchers led by Dina N. Greene, PhD, of the University of Washington in Seattle has now estimated that in transgender women prescribed estrogen, blood clots only occur at a rate of 2.3 per 1,000 person-years. While this is higher than the estimated incidence rate of blood clots in the general population (1.0-1.8 per 1,000 person-years), it is less than the estimated rate in premenopausal women taking oral contraceptives (3.5 per 1,000 person-years), which means that it is an acceptable level of risk. In order to determine this, Greene’s team performed a systematic review of all studies that have included the incidence rate of blood clots in transgender women receiving estrogen therapy, identifying 12 that were most relevant. The researchers then used meta-analysis to combine the results of these 12 studies and calculate a risk estimate that is based on all available evidence to date.

“Documenting the risks associated with hormone treatment may allow for prescribers to feel more comfortable with prescribing practices, allowing for better overall management of transgender people,” said Greene. “Our data support the risk of thrombotic events in transgender women taking estrogen therapy being roughly comparable to the risk of thrombotic risks associated with oral contraceptives in premenopausal women. Given the widespread use of oral contraception, this level of risk appears to be broadly accepted.”

Second Study

In a second study, a team of researchers led by Guy G.R. T’Sjoen, MD, PhD, also conducted a systematic review of all studies that have measured risk factors for cardiovascular disease in transgender people taking hormone therapy. The researchers identified 77 relevant studies in this area and found that the majority of them report no increase in cardiovascular disease in either transgender men or women after 10 years of hormone therapy. The studies that did indicate a higher cardiovascular disease risk for transgender women in particular mainly involved patients using ethinyl estradiol, a now obsolete estrogen agent, and are therefore no longer valid.

T’Sjoen’s team does state that their results are not conclusive due to the small sample sizes and relatively short duration of the studies in this area (and Greene’s team included a similar caveat for their work). However, it is important to look at Greene and T’Sjoen’s studies in the context of transgender research as a whole. The field only began to receive National Institutes of Health funding in 2017 and is also lagging due to the fact that transgender patients often aren’t identified in medical databases that provide data for research. In light of this, these studies are significant not only because they suggest that transgender hormone therapy is safe, but also because they underscore the need for longer-term, large scale studies involving this underserved population.

Kind Clinic Launches Telehealth Service

Patients at Texas Health Action‘s Kind Clinic won’t have to worry about taking time off from work or figuring out how to get to the clinic. The Kind Clinic, which provides sexual health services including PrEP and PEP access, STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, and gender affirming care to Central Texans in need, regardless of race, creed, gender expression, or sexual orientation, has launched TeleKind, Austin’s first telehealth service offering quality sexual healthcare to patients through convenient and confidential video chat on a mobile device or computer.

Existing Kind Clinic patients will be able use TeleKind for follow-up appointments, prescription refills, and health care questions. TeleKind is available to all Kind Clinic patients, insured and uninsured

“Our mission through TeleKind is to ensure that sexual health is attainable for Central Texans, regardless of clinic proximity,” said Texas Health Action CEO Christopher Hamilton. “TeleKind will allow our expert providers to support our patients’ sexual wellness goals through a convenient, user-friendly platform they can access from anywhere.”

With almost 2,000 Kind Clinic patients making a significant commute to the clinic annually, video chat with the clinic’s sexual health experts ensures timely and consistent care for patients across Central Texas. “We take pride in providing our patients with a safe, supportive and empowering environment to address their sexual health concerns,” said Dr. Cynthia Brinson, Chief Medical Officer for Texas Health Action and the Kind Clinic. “TeleKind will allow us to provide that same personalized care for our patients without the commute.”

AIDS Services of Austin (ASA) celebrated the opening of the ASA Moody Medical Clinic with a ribbon cutting and tours of the new facilities for press and community supporters. In addition to ASA staff and board members, dignitaries attending included Representative Lloyd Doggett, Austin Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo, City Council Members Greg Casar (District 4), Jimmy Flannigan (District 6), and Ora Houston (District 1).

Located at ASA’s main campus location at 7215 Cameron Road in North East Austin, the Moody Medical Clinic will provide primary care and HIV specialty care for those living with HIV as well as PrEP services and HIV/STI testing for those at high-risk of transmission. Clinical services will be integrated into ASA’s existing social and direct assistance programs in order to reduce barriers to care.

The ASA Moody Medical Clinic is now open! A special thank you to those that made this clinic a reality: Ross Moody, the…

“Our new ASA Moody Medical Clinic, working alongside the city and our community partners, will support Austin’s Fast-Track City initiative goals by increasing access to life-affirming care and help Austin get to zero new HIV transmissions,” says ASA Chief Executive Officer Paul Scott.

The clinic was made possible with a million dollar investment by Ross Moody and the Moody Foundation and $600,000 in community donations to support the construction, staffing, and first 6 months of clinical operations. The foundation also supported ASA’s Jack Sansing Dental Clinic.

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You're probably gonna need a martini to recover from the weekend, so grab your friends and join us for #MartiniMonday and some C. B. T. !
Professor CupCake, PhDD is back

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You’re probably gonna need a martini to recover from the weekend, so grab your friends and join us for #MartiniMonday and some C. B. T. !

Professor CupCake, PhDD is back with a new overhead projector to bring you CUPCAKE BAR TRIVIA in The Lounge along with your favorite TA (and Happy Hour bartender) Bobby Cook at Rain on 4th every Monday from 7-9 PM.

There are prizes to be won … and plenty of tricks up her sleeve …… remember class starts at 7 PM SHARP!

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Please join us for our first Lesbians Who Tech & Allies networking event of 2019. Kick off the new year with your Lesbians Who Tech squad!
This venue is accessible to

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Please join us for our first Lesbians Who Tech & Allies networking event of 2019. Kick off the new year with your Lesbians Who Tech squad!

This venue is accessible to wheelchair users with ADA compliant entrance and restrooms. No ID Required. Read our Code of Conduct: Lesbianswhotech.org/code-of-conduct

About Lesbians Who Tech + Allies

Lesbians Who Tech + Allies is the largest LGBTQ technology community in the world — committed to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of technology. The 40,000 non-binary, LGBTQ women, queer women of color (and our allies) in tech who make up our community come from every background and live in over 40+ cities worldwide. Over 5,000 women and non-binary people in tech attend our San Francisco Summit, making us the largest professional LGBTQ event in the world and the largest event for women in tech in California. Our programmatic work includes a coding scholarship for non-binary and LGBTQ women called the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship Fund, a mentoring program, Bring a Lesbian to Work Day, and a leadership program — #LWTSQUAD — focused on supporting our members as they move into senior leadership roles and onto corporate boards. We’re not just creating communities; we’re pushing the tech sector to be more inclusive and changing the face of the entire tech industry.

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Join us on Saturday evening of the 26th of January for our Gala Dinner at the JW Marriott Austin.
The Human Rights Campaign Austin 2018 Gala Dinner, Auction, and Afterparty brings

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Join us on Saturday evening of the 26th of January for our Gala Dinner at the JW Marriott Austin.

The Human Rights Campaign Austin 2018 Gala Dinner, Auction, and Afterparty brings together hundreds of HRC members, partners, friends, family and allies for an evening of celebration and inspiration in Austin, TX. Featuring a cocktail reception, an extensive silent auction, an elegant dinner, live entertainment, and thought-provoking speakers and guests, the event consistently attracts some of the state’s top figures in politics and entertainment.

The evening attire is black tie.

Want to be more involved? You can get more information on sponsorships, tickets, becoming a table captain, volunteering, and the silent auction at www.hrcatx.org

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You're probably gonna need a martini to recover from the weekend, so grab your friends and join us for #MartiniMonday and some C. B. T. !
Professor CupCake, PhDD is back

Details

You’re probably gonna need a martini to recover from the weekend, so grab your friends and join us for #MartiniMonday and some C. B. T. !

Professor CupCake, PhDD is back with a new overhead projector to bring you CUPCAKE BAR TRIVIA in The Lounge along with your favorite TA (and Happy Hour bartender) Bobby Cook at Rain on 4th every Monday from 7-9 PM.

There are prizes to be won … and plenty of tricks up her sleeve …… remember class starts at 7 PM SHARP!